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The Abridged History of Al-Habashah: From Axum to Abyssinia
By Taym Ansary

The Golden Age Slips to Dark

...now as I know some of my readers may be asking at this point, "Why did it take so long for Islam to spread into the hinterland and the highlands of Al-Habesha when contact with Muslims started so early?". The answer for that is that while indeed, the sudden outburst of Islam in the 7th Century CE/1st Century AH saw what was a rapid conversion of the coastal peoples of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to the Islamic faith as well as the Arabization of many of the coastal city-states, these converts waged war against the Aksumite remnants and the various tribes and warlords that sprang up across the region. The Habeshah peoples had very, very little reason to convert to the faith of the rebellious and often raiding coastal peoples. Though, as time wore on and as did the increasing fragmentation of power within the region we see the first trickle of conversions.

The first of which being the Afar peoples of the Awash region. The conversion of course at first being slanted toward the people inhabiting the various coastal city-states as we see progressively in the first few centuries of the infiltration of Arab loan words into the local populations alongside settlement of Arabs. In particular in Zelia we see the first instance of the use of Sultan. From there we can trace the spread of Islam into Somalia and the nomadic Afar tribes making up this extremely harsh region. Though, the Afar are able to unite under an Adal Sultanate during the Dark Age of Al-Habesha their population size and political divisions does not allow them to really become much of a threat. The legacy of the Adal Sultanate is much like its economic legacy of acting as middlemen for goods that traveled the oceanic Silk Road routes. It would be from Afar traders that Islam would begin to penetrate the highlands of Al-Habesha.

The first seriously Islamic Warlord being a well known figure of the 10th Century, Imran ibn Melek Seged, a Amhara warlord who was the first to seriously challenge the rule of the Zagwe and form the nucleus of future Islamic empires. Imran hailed from the Lakomelza region, a region.sandwiched between the Afar tribal grounds and the Gondar Kingdom and aligned Jewish warlords. Known for his image curiosity and a sense of Justice he was first converted to the Islamic faith after a Afar trader was asked to comment on a local trial involving the fate of orphans from an local episode of fratercide. Quoting from the hadiths of the Quran, which called for the care of the orphans, Imran was intrigued and soon converted-quickly followed by his people. At first, only a nuisance to the Gondar's allies amongst the Amhara, Imran quite quickly and alarmingly began a two decade long period of conquest and arrangement that saw the creation of a size able bloc of Amhara people...noticeably as well many, but not all, of the local tribes (if not their leaders) were making public conversions to Islam. Alarmed, the Gondar Kingdom dispatched an army to put down Imran but was defeated at every turn by Imran and his allies. It is said from this the seeds of a Religio-Cultural identity for the Amhara first began to form. Still, while the Gondar Kingdom was unsuccessful in defeating Imran, Imran was likely unable to press forward with any attempt to conquer Gondar given the devastation of the conflicts in Lakomelza. Perhaps it was a mistake on the Gondarians part but eventually they used for peace and left Imran to his own, which was well and good as Imran would continue to spend the last years of his reign fighting Agwe tribes but, before his death, which legends say was a result of exhaustion from constant war and that he died standing up in a pious refusal to bow to the Unfaithful, Imran was declared Sultan.

He was declared Sultan of the Lakomelza Sultanate. He was declared Sultan not by himself, but by his own people when he asked of them how he should rule. Legend says that the people of all the Habesha were present that day in his capital of Wasil, and they, the people, declared with an joyous shout that he would be Sultan to guide and guard them in the name of Righteous Allah. Though apparently a construct of years after the death of Imran the symbolic importance of it would have profound effects in times to come.